Please join the Australian Human Rights Centre at UNSW Law School in marking the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The ADA has changed America and inspired the world.

Professors Gerard Quinn, Rosemary Kayess and Peter Blanck lecturing at University of New South Wales, Australia

This seminar features one of America’s leading authors and litigators on the ADA – Professor Peter Blanck, Ph.D., J.D. – who directs the Burton Blatt Institute (BBI) at Syracuse University and is a University Professor, which is the highest academic rank conferred. He has been involved as a litigator in leading ADA cases and was an expert witness in the famous Jenny Hatch case in Virginia (2013) that moved American courts in the direction of ‘supported decision making’ and away from a presumption of guardianship. He is centrally involved in the new U.S. National Resource Center for Supported Decision-Making as well as the Jenny Hatch Justice Project. Lead by the U.S. NGO Quality Trust for Individuals with Disabilities, these groundbreaking efforts assist persons with disabilities, their families and supporters, to explore and pursue non-guardianship based options to support them in decision-making.

Professor Blanck will be joined by professor Gerard Quinn, who is a visiting distinguished professor at UNSW and whose current work focuses on law reform throughout the world in the field of guardianship. He will also be joined by the Public Guardian of New South Wales, Mr Graeme Smith. They will reflect together on the advances in American caselaw, how it connects to broader currents of reform in the world and its practical significance here in NSW. The conversation will be moderated by Rosemary Kayess of the Australian Human Rights Centre at UNSW who was centrally involved in the drafting of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

The seminar should be of interest to anyone interested in innovative ADA litigation and fresh thinking in the field of guardianship.